...MANAGING VIRTUAL PROJECT TEAMS A research project submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Business Administration by Bryan Rolf Trautsch San Francisco, California December 11, 2003 Copyright (c) 2003 by Bryan Trautsch. CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read VIRTUAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT by Bryan Rolf Trautsch, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a research project submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Master of Business Administration degree at San Francisco State University. ________________________________________ Dr. Robert C. Nickerson Professor of Information Systems ________________________________________ Dr. Sam S. Gill Professor of Information Systems ABSTRACT MANAGING VIRTUAL PROJECT TEAMS Bryan Rolf Trautsch San Francisco State University Fall 2003 The purpose of the project is to explore the communications and collaborations issues associated with managing virtual project teams. In order to establish a better understanding of the problem, the paper evaluates virtual teams against more traditional collocated teams to provide some background and depth to the research. The method used in the research was in the format of a questionnaire consisting of six questions. The questionnaire was delivered via e-mail to various project managers with virtual project team experience dispersed through...
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...MANAGING VIRTUAL PROJECT TEAMS A research project submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Business Administration by Bryan Rolf Trautsch San Francisco, California December 11, 2003 Copyright (c) 2003 by Bryan Trautsch. CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read VIRTUAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT by Bryan Rolf Trautsch, and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a research project submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Master of Business Administration degree at San Francisco State University. ________________________________________ Dr. Robert C. Nickerson Professor of Information Systems ________________________________________ Dr. Sam S. Gill Professor of Information Systems ABSTRACT MANAGING VIRTUAL PROJECT TEAMS Bryan Rolf Trautsch San Francisco State University Fall 2003 The purpose of the project is to explore the communications and collaborations issues associated with managing virtual project teams. In order to establish a better understanding of the problem, the paper evaluates virtual teams against more traditional collocated teams to provide some background and depth to the research. The method used in the research was in the format of a questionnaire consisting of six questions. The questionnaire was delivered via e-mail to various project managers with virtual project team experience...
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...Team Synergy’s Top Ten Guidelines 1. Choose the right team members. Not all team leader/managers will have this opportunity, but certainly if you do, it’s probably the most critical. As Goodbody (2005) points out, you first objective is to make sure you have all of the knowledge and skills that you need within the team with the fewest number of people. The larger the group, the more complex it becomes to manage. When considering skill sets, you must not only take into account technical expertise but other skills such as organizational understanding and communication. 2. Defining goals/expectations/vision Having a mission is setting the plan, where the team members will be able to work to one goal to accomplish the task. This is the first practice a Manager must consider in order to get to be successfully. Townsend, DeMarie and Hendrickson (1998) said that virtual teams should determine the configuration of individual teams, dictate their mission, and ultimately determine the type of technical system required and the requisite skills and orientation of the team and its members. By setting expectations and goals each team member will have a clear understanding of what the goals are, and are expected of them to achieve and attain those goals. 3. Defined roles/ responsibilities Members of virtual team will be geographically isolated where the team manager will probably not be aware of the other roles and responsibilities that each member has at their respective...
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...in the workplace setting. Effective communication is the measure used when delivering information to a distinctive person or group by way of non-verbal and verbal communication. In today’s health care organizations they are trying out a mixture of forms of communication structures. These structures will help in the journey to improve patient care, increase productivity, and cutthroat advantages (Lombardi & Shermerhorn, 2007, p.53). Several organizations use traditional communication patterns such as divisional, functional, and matrix structures. However, some still use nontraditional patterns such as networking, teamwork, and “boundaryless” organizations (Lombardi & Shermerhorn, 2007, p.53). Countless of new managers must first follow traditional policies and routines already established by former managers or upper management before creating their own. The formal organizational structure is known as the official structure. This structure shows the way the organization is designed to function. There are organizational charts designed to help describe how an organization should work. In the chart it shows the division of work, which is the different positions or titles and what they are responsible for. The chart also shows supervisory positions or who reports to who, communication channels that describe formal communication channels, major subunits shows positions that report to one common manager, and levels of management that shows the different levels of management...
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...Managing Conflict in the Workplace Professional Development, MBA 525 Managing Conflict in the Workplace Introduction Conflict is something we all have experienced or will experience sometime in our lives; one could say conflict is inevitable. Conflict can sometimes get out of hand and can cause havoc in a person’s work life and family life. Conflict is perceived incompatible differences that result in interference or opposition (Robbins, Coutler, 2011). Whether the differences are real or not is irrelevant (Robbins, Coutler, 2011). If people in a group perceive that differences exist, then there is conflict (Robbins, Coutler, 2011). Because of the environment we live in, the strategic alignment of organization’s expanding their workforce globally, the strategic business goals alignment of workplace diversity initiatives, and companies expanding more into work teams and workgroups; conflict in the workplace has become inevitable. There will always be differences in opinions among work groups; however; effectively managing conflict is the key to balancing conflict resolution in the workplace. Recognizing Conflict Being able to recognize the causes of conflict is an important part of preventing conflict (Pace, 2006). When conflict can be recognized a solution can be created to limit conflict in the workplace. There will be varies opinions in the workplace and work teams; however, when conflict...
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...process was a success and grew to be an 11 store operation in no time and one of the southeast’s largest independent retailers, and is still owned and operated by Gary Houser (Houser Shoes, 2007). In 2000, Houser and his daughter Beth Houser created a shared vision for another chain of stores named GB Shoe Warehouse, which is also one of the southeast's largest shoe stores. Houser has a total of 150 people employees and embraces the strategy of making stakeholders feel special and realizes that its staff that is the backbone of its existence and people have faces and names not just numbers. Social Network Building the first step to building a social network is identifying those on whom the project depends for success (Gray & Larson, 2006). And that's why employees at all the Houser Shoes stores are friendly and welcoming. Houser has a managing project reward system that assigns the leadership team the responsibility of managing the reward system that encourages stakeholder’s performance and extra efforts (Gray & Larson, 2006). The retail fashion industry is con-steadily changing, Houser wants to maintain its reputation in providing all brand names at prices up to 75% off regular department store prices(Houser Shoes, 2007). Houser’s concept is to provide quality shoes to his customers during many years of expansion. Houser has a total of 16 retail stores is located throughout Tennessee, West Virginia and the Carolinas (Houser Shoes, 2007). Houser stores are facing...
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...PM on class days and by appointment Class Hrs: Wed 1:30-4:20 PM on Jan 27; Feb 3, 10, 17, 24; Mar 3, 10, 24, 31; Apr 7, 14, 21, 28. Due Dates Team Case Write-up: 2/24. Final Team Project : 4/28. Indiv Take Home Final: 5/2. ____________________________________________________________ _________________ Course Overview Welcome aboard! What do leaders do? What happens inside organizations? And how do these relate to each other? In a nutshell, that’s the stuff this course is made of. Business organizations of all types face chronic management problems that pose significant challenges to them. These problems include the difficulty of designing organizations capable of coping with highly dynamic business environments, the challenge of developing strategies and structures for hypercompetitive conditions, the greater complexity of managing global enterprises, the difficult task of shaping a corporate culture, managing politics and conflict between individuals and organizational units, motivating employees who are more mobile than ever, designing attractive incentive systems, managing and harnessing intellectual capital, and so on. Such challenges and how the top leadership can deal with them are the subject of this course. The course has two major components. The first is “macro” in nature. It focuses on organizational level issues and problems, such as how an organization should be designed (e.g., centralized or decentralized), what strategy it should follow (e.g., integrated or diversified)...
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...Section One Roles and Duties of Managers The definition of management is the process of working with and through people and other resources to accomplish organisational goals efficiently and effectively. The nature of management is through doing things efficiently and effectively to maintaining and improving productivity, and thereby better organisational performance. If organisations could have a balance between effectiveness, efficiency, and equity, it proved successful management. The role of managers can be described as following: liaison, resource allocator, and monitor. • Liaison Liaison is one of the interpersonal roles, which responsible for maintaining self developed network of outside contacts and informers who provide favors and information. In the Tang’s expansion stage, Brian Tang as a liaison must effectively promote communicate with outside, such as doing financing work to increase company’s funding and that have to communicate with investors. • Resource allocator Resource allocator is one of the decisional roles, which responsible for the allocation of organisational resources in all aspect and making or approving all significant organizational decisions. Brian Tang as the founder and the current chairman allocate resources on his own, for instance when company got a government loan, it introduce a series of branded products which satisfied the market demand; when company expand its scale, it structured into 7 departments in order to better management. All...
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...hbr.org Traditional best practices won’t work. You need a stricter, more top-down playbook. by Keeley Wilson and Yves L. Doz 10 Rules for Managing Global Innovation Companies are well aware that hidden in their dispersed, global operations is a treasure trove of ideas and capabilities for innovation. But it’s proving harder than expected to unearth those ideas or exploit those capabilities in global innovation projects. Some of the challenges of global projects are familiar: figuring out the right role for top executives, for example, or finding a good balance between formal and informal project management processes. But although the challenges may be familiar, the solutions are not; what works for an innovation project conducted in a single location doesn’t necessarily work for one dispersed across many sites around the world. That’s partly because many important enablers of innovation happen naturally in colocation. Single location projects draw on large reservoirs of shared tacit knowledge and trust, and when issues arise, senior management is on hand to make decisions and provide direction and support. Team members october 2012 harvard business review 85 10 Rules foR Managing global innovation share the same language, culture, and norms, enabling flexibility and iterative learning as the project unfolds. When a project spans multiple locations, many of those natural benefits—often taken for granted—are lost. Part of the challenge of dispersed innovation...
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...I have read the article from the IEE Engineering Management Journal. The article is named “The Human Factor“ and it is about how to manage people you work with. The main idea of the article is that the human factor in a job, where you are working with other people and trying to manage them, is essential. The author takes few areas and analyses them, by giving examples from a real job life and giving usefull advices. These areas are: • Behaviour; • Motivation: o Achievement, o Recognition, o The work itslef, o Responsibility, o Advancement; • Problems. And finally the author talks where to seek solutions. Now I would like to summarize each of the part. At the sector „Behaviour“ there is talking about how manager‘s behaviour can influence employees and them attitude towards the job. The author offers to imagine situation like this: thae manager comes to an employee and says what he is doing wrong and only criticizes him. For sure that makes employee feel diffident and disappointed. Also there can be the opposite situation. If the manager will be too supportive, employees can feel too much independence. And this is not good also. So, the point is that manager’s behavior absolutely affects team’s results. And he also suggests that managers should say to a team that they would like to know all the problems that employees face. And of course react to the problems positively. The other essential thing for business effectiveness is motivation. The main thing for manager is...
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...CHALLENGES OF MANAGING VIRTUALIZED TEAMS Table of Contents I. Introduction 3 II. Why Virtual Teams? 3 III. Are Virtual Teams For Me? 4 IV. Virtual Team Challenges and Best Practices 4 1. Communication Challenges 5 A. Cultural and Global Communication Challenges 6 2. Management and Leadership Challenges 7 V. On The Flip Side: Virtualized Project Managers 9 VI. Conclusion 9 Appendix 1: Source: Solomon, 2010, p. 10 11 Appendix 2: Source: Solomon, 2010, p. 12 12 I. Introduction As globalization becomes more prevalent in organizations and telecommunications infrastructure improves, virtual teams are becoming more and more of a reality. Collaboration of work and sharing of knowledge is becoming increasingly important as businesses promote more agile and just-in-time production. Many businesses realize that virtual teams can provide them with these competitive advantages. However, as virtual teams grow in popularity (Cascio et al., 2000), the challenges that come with managing these teams become more apparent. This is due to problems that naturally come from a virtual environment, such as communication deficiency, lack of motivation, and non-transparent management. This report is intended to inform project managers and IT professionals about the challenges of virtual team management and provide best practices for handling these challenges. In this paper, we will be looking at managing three different configurations for virtual teams: virtualized...
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...Haldane Student I.D. L000093338 Date 27/10/14 After analysing Jess's role as manager of the Customer Engagement team I have come to the conclusion that in order for her to move forward and fulfil her role to the best of her ability she would benefit from using the following management and leadership theories. Management Theory – Rosemary Stewart This theory enables jobs to be examined in 3 important ways: The demands of the job – What job holder must do. The constraints – Limit what job holder can do. The choices – Indicate how much freedom the job holder has to do the work in way she chooses. The purpose of this theory is to show how dealing appropriately with demands & constraints and exercising choices, can improve a manager’s effectiveness. Demands of the job Demands are what are expected of Jess within her new position within the company in order to get the job done and not run into problems. Jess must look at all the demands to define the future strategic decisions of the organisation. The demands in which Jess should currently be focusing on are: Ensuring profit is being made. Satisfying both customers & stakeholders Improve the new structure of the team/business. Ensuring quality of products and services. Ensuring staff morale is high. Constraints Is what is preventing Jess from achieving the demands which have been set upon her. Current constraints which need to be focused on are: The culture of the...
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...Changing the Face at the Busiest Airport in the World through Project Management Refurbishing Heathrow Airport Terminal 1, On Time, On Budget, With No Disruptions to Travelling Public Background: Dated and In Need of a Revamp, But It has to be Business as Usual... BAA Airports Ltd. was tasked with the refurbishment of Terminal 1, a 40-year-old building within Heathrow Airport, the busiest international airport in the world, whilst constantly keeping the terminal open to the 20 million annual travellers. In 2004 BAA and the Star Alliance network, established in 1997 as the first truly global airline alliance to offer worldwide reach and seamless service to the international traveller, signed a memorandum of understanding that would result in Star Alliance moving into Terminal 1 at Heathrow Airport. Terminal 1 had previously been for short-haul European destinations only, but the introduction of Star Alliance meant that international passengers would now also be using the terminal. This work was required to facilitate the move by a number of Star Alliance airlines who were moving their operations from Terminals 2 and 3 to Terminal 1. The successful completion of this project was the enabler for the complete transformation of Heathrow Airport that is used by more than 90 airlines, which fly to more than 180 destinations worldwide. As well as a commitment to completing the project within a very strict deadline, health and safety issues were also a big concern given that the project...
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...in Resolving Team Conflict John Cathey 50023176 Manuscript Assignment MGT 567.01W: Managing Groups & Teams Abstract Organizations have been creating teams in an effort to improve communications, processes, respond to customers, or develop new processes or services. Conflict within teams is not new nor is it unexpected or always destructive. Organizations are looking at new ways to form teams and technology has increased the ability to form teams from diverse locations. Teams no longer must be formed from a single location, there are now virtual teams. These teams may be made up of members from different time zones or countries. There is also a new form of team to explore, communities of practice, a group of people that share information, insight, tools, and experience about a subject or area of interest (Kerno & Mace, 2010). What types of conflict arise in these types of teams, do managers need to manage the conflict differently, or does conflict affect these teams differently? This paper looks at the types of conflict found in each of these teams as well as the impact conflict can have on team productivity. It is important for those managers responsible for teams understand the impact of conflict and how to successfully manage it to ensure the team meets or exceeds the goals set by the organization. This paper will provide some insight to assist managers with that task. The Importance of Communication in Resolving Team Conflict Managers know that a real...
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...different, it is essential that managers understand their role in creating peaceful working environments with effective communication, compassion and understanding for each worker’s background. This paper will outline topics such as; the importance of effective communication, employee development and coaching. It will also analyze different management styles and discuss why each manager should mix several management styles together in order to be effective in dealing with such diversity. According to dictionary.com, communication is defined as the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing or signs. It is not only important for managers to understand how effective they can be based on their communication techniques but also understand that each team member or subordinate will respond differently to each form of communication. In the workplace, managers can communicate with their teams via e-mail, telephone, web casts, text messages, instant messages and face to face. Being a great manager is about learning which communication technique works best for each individual. One mistake that managers make when dealing with a wide range of employees: believing that what works for one individual will work for all individuals. Having conversations about performance, communicating changes and relaying bad news can be difficult for those in management positions. The negative conversations are necessary; therefore if leaders have a strategic method in how...
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